You must reckon
1 Corinthians 4:1-7 · Vern Peterman · Aug 16, 2009
1 & 2 Corinthians, No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926141265291

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to be moving pretty quickly into the passage that Wayne read for us here this morning. And I've got it titled, I think it shows up on your handouts and on the bulletin, it says, You Must Reckon. Now, I've got to do some perhaps realigning of your thinking about this word, you must reckon.

And it's possible that you're thinking that, you know, given the background that I have, some of you are aware that, you know, I kind of spent some time growing up on a farm and in later years, even, you know, building a house on that property and that sort of thing. And some of you might be aware that I even tried to bring my kids up in the same farming tradition. And so you may even be aware that at one point in time Nancy and I used to have this hay truck and that sort of thing. And so with that kind of a background, you might be thinking something like, you know, like they use it in farming language.

Well, I think I, you know, would like to do this only would say, well, I reckon I'll go get myself a snack, right? You know, that sort of thing. He's using it a little more seriously here, okay? Alright. And we'll talk about what he means by this you must reckon idea.

He's continuing, as we've been talking about in recent weeks, matter of fact, almost since we began studying the book of 1 Corinthians, he is continuing to deal with the divided believers there in Corinth. These believers were divided amongst one another because they were busy trying to climb the social ladder, getting different groups to follow some of the folks that they thought of as the leaders. And it was essentially, without causing anything official, kind of a church split. The church was split up by these various groups that were following after this person or that one. These people were trying to build their own personal empires using the church as the tool and the place of building their own personal empires within the body of Christ, within the church there.

These usually well-to-do people were ones who were trying to curry favor amongst different people. Hey, follow me. Look at me. and try to get to follow them on the basis of their wise words, their eloquence, their wisdom, at least as the world would see it.

And the problem was really big and involved, and one of the ways that we know that it was a really big problem is this. Paul started addressing this in chapter 1, verse 10. Here we are in chapter 4 and he is not done dealing with this issue. I would say that's an indication that this is a big issue among them.

That it is essentially tearing the church apart and certainly getting everybody off track thinking that building their own personal empires is what the church is all about. And so he's addressing this first and he's addressing it substantially there among the church body there in Corinth.

Now, one of the things we have to do, because the English translations start with let, is to let you know something, and that is that it's important to recognize that let does not mean allow in this passage. As a matter of fact, it doesn't mean allow anywhere from Acts to the end of the New Testament. When you see it anywhere in that section of Scripture, basically from Acts of the Apostles all the way to Revelation. So here's roughly a couple dozen books. It doesn't mean allow. What does it mean?

It actually means that they must, and in this case, they must regard Paul as Christ's servant and as a steward of the mysteries of God. So it's not a matter of permitting people to do it, but they must come to that place. It's necessary that they do so. They must come to that place of recognizing Paul as a servant of Christ and as a steward of the mysteries of God. So now we get to this word regard, or as the King James has it in one place, reckon.

This Greek word is the one that's translated consider or reckon in Romans 6.11. It's a very pivotal word.

And basically, where it amounts to, it's an accounting term. It says, you guys figure this out. Add it up. Once you're done through adding it up, here's the place you need to come to. That's what this is about. And as we pointed out last week, as if the Texan vernacular applied here, y'all must regard. It's the plural. All of you must come to this place.

All of you have to come to the place of recognizing, regarding, we, that is Paul and his co-teacher Apollos, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Their view of Paul at this point had stunted their spiritual growth. And I'll put that in there.

Stunted their spiritual growth. Even as we saw in a previous passage at the beginning of chapter 3, he said, by now you should be farther along spiritually than you are, but you're not. By now you should have grown past this point, but you haven't. So he's saying, here's what you have to do to get past that place of stunted growth.

You need to recognize that we are servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. You've got to come to that point. It's necessary that you do. He was telling him essentially this, if we were to put it in some modern terminology. Look, I report to Christ.

I don't want and I certainly don't need to try to impress you with what I'm saying. I'm not trying to get a following after me. I have no reason to try to impress you like some of the others are doing there in the Church of Corinth. I'm not trying to build up my own personal empire. That's not what this is about.

As a steward, Paul had been entrusted with the responsibility by God Himself to reveal truths that had never before been revealed in Scripture. He was also taking it places that it had never been. Certainly Corinth was one of them. As a matter of fact, as soon as he stepped into Philippi, That was the first church established on the European continent, and here Corinth was among those first churches established on the European continent. He had been entrusted with the responsibility of revealing the gospel and specific truths that he had been given to reveal. The focus isn't on Paul, but on the God who reveals. He says, God is the one who gave me this assignment, he said.

It wasn't mine to come up with, and I certainly don't want to draw attention to myself. That's not the point. Oh yes, I know, the rest of you may have people among you who want to draw attention to yourselves, but that's not what I'm about, and I know that's not what Apollos, my co-teacher, is about.

Ultimately, it's about, in this verse, it's about God's Word. You guys need to recognize that what we're bringing to you is God's Word. It's about God. It's not about us. That's not the point. You are to focus on God, not on the teachers. This is the body of Christ, not the body of whoever the leader is in the church that you're trying to get everybody to follow. Myself and Apollos included, you would say. Put the focus on the Lord. In the next book he writes to them, he's going to say, beholding the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what the Holy Spirit uses to transform us into his image. Transforming us from beholding him, not the leader, however impressed they might be. Not the teachers. The teachers are not the focus.

But another part of the problem that the Corinthians were having trouble with, they weren't seeing the Word of God as the ultimate authority. Paul was telling them, you Corinthians need to come to a place of recognizing, regarding, add it up, figure it out. You need to recognize that what we're conveying to you, what we're passing along is the Word of God. It has that authority. There are a number of Christians who don't get it when it comes to the place of, here is the Word of God.

This is the standard. This is the measuring stick, if you will, for gauging everything else. The Word of God is a standard by which we measure everything else in life. Even, is that a good hymn to sing? What does the Word of God say? When we get together as believers, what should we spend our time on? What should we talk about? Well, what does the Word of God say? The Word of God should be the measure of everything. What ought to be happening in our homes? What ought to be happening as we go to work? What ought to be happening in all the different places that the Word of God speaks about? The Word of God is the measure.

And these Corinthians hadn't gotten that point. They hadn't understood that. They were instead so busy building up their own empires, personal empires. And as we mentioned last week, some of the terms that have come to be associated with church ought not to be.

We mentioned church politics. Do you know how much church politics God wants in the church? None. Zip. Or how about this term? Church split. Isn't that what Paul's addressing here? Church splits? The Lord doesn't want that either. Things that have become associated with that word, he says there's no place for it. The Word of God ought to be the measure. And it's when people don't see the Word of God as the measure, that's when you have church politics. That's when you have church splits. Somebody has lost sight of what the Word of God is intended to be.

In the second verse, Paul points out, stewards must be trustworthy. The King James here, rightfully, has the word faithful in there. A steward is someone, as Mike addressed just a few weeks ago, who has been entrusted with something. given something that they are to take care of, to carry out, something for which they're responsible for. Think about it. A wedding is really an entrusting ceremony, isn't it? You are entrusted with the other person's life. You're entrusted with a relationship. It's an entrusting ceremony. It's a matter of being mutual stewards, right?

Yeah. As we become parents, we really don't own those kids. We're entrusted with them. By whom? By God. We're entrusted by God with those children. They're around for a time, sometimes a little bit shorter than we might like, and sometimes a little bit longer than we might like, but they're around for a period of time entrusted to us. That's God's intent.

It's a stewardship. How about this? We are entrusted with one another here in this local church body. Yeah. We have been entrusted with one another, with the relationships that we have here. This isn't just my church as if it were a sense of personal ownership. Yes, it is my church, but because I've been entrusted. Each of us has an entrusting with respect to this church body. How about we've been entrusted with the freedoms and responsibilities that go along with it here in this country that we live in.

We've been entrusted with those things. We have a stewardship. The truth is we have stewardships, we have been entrusted with a great many things. Some of us have been entrusted with multiple things at one time. With whatever it is that the steward has been entrusted, He must be faithful in carrying out his assignment. Some entrusting, some stewardships are for a fairly short period of time. Others may be for a lifetime. There are different kinds. The reason that a steward must be faithful, and this is an important principle, is that the one doing the entrusting is actually of greater importance and greater authority than the steward.

That's one of the reasons why when we have a wedding, we've had a few up here, when we have a wedding, God's involved. Why? It's really, I mean I can come up here and say things, and I ought to say some things, but it's really ultimately God who is giving the stewardship, giving the entrusting to the couple that's involved. When a couple has a child or more than one, it's really God who is doing the entrusting into those people's hands, isn't he?

Why is the stewardship important? It's not important because of the steward, the one receiving that which he's been entrusted with, but because of the one who is doing the entrusting. And Paul's point here, stewards must be faithful. Why? Because it is God who is doing the entrusting. If we've been given God's Word through the hands of Paul and the other human authors of Scripture, it's because God has entrusted it to them. And further, it's been entrusted to us. you have a stewardship regarding God's Word. Now, how about this idea of judging?

Here in Romans 14.4, just the prior book in the New Testament sequence, Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. Paul is ultimately saying, look, we are servants of Christ.

We are stewards of the mysteries of God. It's not to you we report. You aren't the ones who get to make the judgment as to whether or not we've been faithful. God's the one. We're going to stand before Christ someday, is what Paul is saying. And that's something that we understand we're going to be accountable for. but recognize God as the one who hands the stewardship to a person. Now we get to the next verses, 3 through 5, and what's he talking about in those verses?

What is he saying in there? From the words that Paul chose and from the context, it seems here that some in this church at Corinth had summarily judged Paul. as if they held Christ's authority to judge believers. They'd stepped in and, ah, Paul, he's not worth listening to. Paul, ah, I don't care what he says. I've got to get a following. I want to have people pay attention to my wisdom. They appear to have summarily judged Paul, perhaps his co-teacher, Apollos. But Paul said that in the sense of final authority to judge others with eternal consequences, nobody but Christ has that place. Nobody but Christ.

Let me ask you this. When Christ comes to judge you and me as believers, will it be with an army and a sword? Is that the way you're going to be judged? Remember, we studied this just a couple weeks back. One of the things we said is, no, if you're a believer, it's not a time, oh yes, it's serious in the sense that it makes a difference, but it's not a time to tremble and fear and to be afraid.

But rather, the Lord is looking to reward us. The Lord will come to us personally. He comes as one who is looking to and longing to and motivated to reward us. That's his intent. He is one who is longing to have us to the max, full of the capacity to glorify him, to show him glory forever. That's what he's motivated to do.

Paul would not even begin to judge himself in any final way. He wouldn't even do that for himself. He says, I'm going to leave that to Christ. He says, and as for writing me off, that's not your place. I've been given authority by the Lord. So one question we have is, are believers to judge or not? What do you think? Have you heard anybody say, Judge not, lest ye be judged. You ever hear that one? Very soon in this letter, Paul is going to write that believers ought to judge themselves and also one another. How about that? Yet Paul said here that he didn't even judge himself. Is Paul contradicting himself?

Here's something to throw into the mix to think about. Here is Christ. He is in the middle of healing, and he speaks to those who are criticizing him, and he says, do not judge according to appearance, but judge, and that's written with an imperative, you must judge with righteous judgment. So there's a you must judge, however it's qualified, with righteous judgment. There's another one. We're going to be seeing it just in the very next chapter.

1 Corinthians 5.12, second half of that verse. Do you not judge those who are within the church? And by the way, the Greek here indicates a yes answer to that question. Do you not do that? You ought to, he says. In the very next chapter, we'll be getting to this as well, chapter 6. He writes to them in the first six verses, Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels?

How much more matters of this life? I'm going to move on to verse five. I say this to your shame. Is it so that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren? That sounds like believers judging between believers, doesn't it? That's what he describes. We'll look at that passage in more detail. We're here in chapter 11. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. This is regarding the Lord's table.

For Hugh eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. In verse 31, But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world. See, it is possible for believers to get real confused about this judging.

I see some passages that say do it, some that say don't. What do I do? Well, as we start to examine this, we might at first think, well, isn't he contradicting himself? What we have done in order not to try to cover everything this morning, we won't have time. There's a write-up on the cabinet to the right as you exit this room. Oh, it's about five pages long, but it explains this thing of judging. Yes, believers are to do judging within a certain range. It's what Scripture describes that we ought to do, but there are also limitations.

I am not going to determine Who gets eternal reward and who doesn't? That won't be my place and it won't be any of yours. The Lord himself will do that. I am not going to decide who cannot go to heaven and who can't. That's the Lord's to judge. I will never do that.

I'm also not to judge my brother or sister in matters of conscience. As the scripture doesn't directly address it, that's a matter of conscience. And I'm not to judge my brother or sister in those areas. I'm also not to put myself up and judge for an area in which I have no biblical authority.

So there are limitations and restrictions in those areas. But we also are called to judge biblically in those areas where the Lord has called us to do so. So I'll leave it to you to pursue that further. We are to judge some things, but leave final judgment to the Lord. We are certainly to make judgments in this present life, and we need to do so as stewards. We have judgments to make about our children, or if you have responsibility for children in some other capacity, about the children of others. We have judgments to make, as he spells out here in this very book, between ourselves here in the body of Christ. Yeah, there are some things to judge, but according to the biblical principles that apply, and not arbitrarily.

As a matter of fact, one of the things that's spelled out in chapter 11, where we do not judge, God will step in and do the judging, even in this life. Here how he spells it out in chapter 11, but if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world. The Lord disciplines us.

Why? In order that we might resume fellowship with him. In order that we might resume a walk. in fellowship with the Lord and with other believers. That's when God will step in. And that's why He steps in. He is not just going like, oh boy, I can't wait till Vern just gets stung by what I've got next for him. Right?

That's not the way the Lord works. The Lord instead says, I want Vern to walk with me and therefore I'm going to correct him here. I want Vern to walk in fellowship and to live that out with the other believers, and therefore the Lord will correct, even me.

You see, there are things that believers do need to be corrected about, and what's the goal of that correction? The goal of the correction is not, Aha! Gotcha! But the goal of the correction of a fallen believer is ultimately to relationship. What is he talking to these believers, writing to these believers in Corinth about? He's writing not because he loves using his apostolic authority and thinking, boy, that'll get them. Instead, he's writing because he wants to restore them to fellowship with the Lord and fellowship with one another. He wants them to grow spiritually. He wants them to restore be restored to that place of growth. That's why he's writing this.

The Lord alone, however, has the authority to make final judgments. I'm not called in to do those things. Only God is competent to make those kinds of judgments. Why? He sees and knows things I do not. It is God who searches hearts. I can't do that. No human being can. God reserves that for Himself. God alone knows all the facts. We will not, when we stand before the Lord, escape on a technicality. Not going to happen. God alone has the capacity to judge us with absolute, total knowledge of everything.

And thank heaven, thank the Lord, infinite grace and mercy. Isn't that wonderful? When the Lord judges us, He does so out of infinite love and grace and mercy. And that's a tremendous thing. So we are indeed called to make judgments according to the Word of God. We should remember and keep in mind that some judgments are reserved for God alone. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing.

In verse 6, Paul is basically stating there that he used himself and Apollos as examples, actually from the very first chapter. And into the third and now the fourth chapter, he's been using his name and Apollos as primary examples. In fact, he has not been using the names of the others who have been dividing up the body of Christ, apparently with some intent. But he does so for the sake of teaching these believers in Corinth to follow Christ and not to follow other men.

Basically, he's saying, God has sent me to bring these things to you. God has sent me to give you the gospel. That's God's intent. That's God's purpose. That's exactly what He had in mind. Not so that you could follow me, Paul, or my co-teacher, Apollos, but so that you would follow the Lord. That you would be built up as the body of Christ by following Him.

He writes also in verse 6, do not go beyond what is written. Now what does he mean by that? What exactly does he mean by do not go beyond what's written? Does it mean do not drive beyond the end of the pier? Does it mean do not walk beyond the end of the pier? Does it mean do not walk or drive beyond the end of the road?

What's he talking about? Do not go beyond what is written. We can tell from the first verse that they didn't have an understanding of the authority of God's Word and of the uniqueness of it, the fact that it is the last measure, the measuring stick for God's people. They apparently didn't get that picture. In verse 6, he made clear believers should not go beyond God's Word. That is, extending beyond God's Word on the basis of human wisdom, experiences following some charismatic or magnetic personality. That's not what he has in mind.

Don't go beyond what's written when you come to the body of Christ for anything. Apparently, we're feeling free to do so. I think this. My experience has been that. And he's saying, no, stick to the Word of God. No basis in feelings is sufficient to go beyond the Word of God. There are people who come with all kinds of ideas about who Christ is and what He did. He says, no, that's not it. Stick to the Word of God. He says, we stick with Christ and Christ crucified. That one.

There are those who will appeal to all sorts of experiences. the things that happen in our church service. We'll do all sorts of things and you'll have this experience. And yes, it's not in the Bible, but we think you ought to do it. There are those who try to use their mind to logic their way beyond God's Word. He says, don't go beyond what's written. I don't care how you got there.

Now, I have a question. I'd like to see a show of hands. How many of you feel really encouraged and warmed at heart when you encounter somebody that's arrogant. Just a show of hands. What? Nobody? Oh, well, that doesn't surprise me. There are those who habitually look down on others and seem to enjoy doing so.

He actually begins using this word arrogant here in this chapter and, matter of fact, doesn't stick with just this passage but continues on. The way he puts it, he says, some of you are puffed up one against the other. Now, this idea of puffed up is an interesting pattern of words. He begins here in verse 6 with this word that's translated arrogant or in the King James, puffed up.

And that's actually not too bad a way of putting it. It actually comes from a word that comes from the sound of a bellows. It is something you would use to generate a stream of wind. So puffed up, even though, yeah, that's sort of a nice fake picture, that's actually the picture he's using. In New Testament times, bellows would be made out of goat skin and they would actually have this thing that they'd use to generate a puff of air, similar to what we would have.

Perhaps you've seen something more like this. But the Greek word starts off with phus, And so you can imagine this bellows going, foos, foos, foos. And it's that word that he uses here. And interestingly, he uses it again, two more times in this chapter. Again, in chapter 5, chapter 8, and chapter 13. I would propose to you that these people were arrogant in the extreme.

And the reason that I would suggest that, only in Colossians 2.18 does he use it anywhere else. or any New Testament author use that anywhere else. These folks in Corinth were extremely puffed up. So he uses this word repeatedly. I would suggest that they had a big problem for him to continue to use this word not only again twice more in this chapter but again again on into the 13th chapter.

He says love is not puffed up. Love doesn't go foos, foos, foos. Arrogance was a huge problem in this church. One of the things that becomes really clear as we look at this verse, we have zero basis for human pride. As a matter of fact, not only no basis, but no value for human pride. None here in the body of Christ.

We have been saved because we believed in what God did. It's because of God's awesome mercy and grace and trust in Him for which we get no credit. It's not a merit that we believe. We've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Because of something we did? No. Because of something we know? No. all out of His grace. We have no basis for human pride in what we own, who we are, what we do or don't do, what we know or what we've experienced. Ah, but I know this. So, there's no basis for pride. None whatsoever.

Paul says that's puffed up. And basically what he says in this book repeatedly, he says that's a problem. That's a problem. God is the one who is due the praise and the glory and the honor and the worship. Period. Him alone. Now it's clear that the Corinthian believers were questionable, so Paul asked them questions. And that's how this passage ends up. In verse 7, he asks them a few questions. His questions are to challenge the arrogance of the Corinthians. They were trying to build their own personal empires within the church body, trying to exalt themselves. Paul's questions here, the basis of their fake superiority.

Some even thinking that they have everything that they own without receiving it. They don't realize that, look, everything that you've got, didn't you get it from somewhere or somebody else? None of them were their own creators. Did you make yourself? Are you your own creator? No, everything that you have, everything that you have, you received. You don't make it up. You don't create it. God is the one who deserves the credit and the honor and the glory and the worship. Not yourselves.

Now we have what we call Expanded and Explain, where we kind of go into an expanded write-up on the passage. What I've done is for the whole chapter, that's also available in the cabinet to the right as you exit this room if you're familiar with that and want to have advantage of that. Or if you're not familiar with it and want to see what that's like, that's available for the entire fourth chapter there. Now, if you're wondering, is Paul really serious about this arrogance issue?

Look how the first verse of the next passage starts. I'll read it for you. 1 Corinthians 4, verse 8. He says, You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have become kings without us. And indeed, I wish that you had become kings so that we might reign with you. The irony and sarcasm, of course, runs deep.

Paul is trying to get it across to these people, look, nobody is being built up on the body of Christ by this arrogance. Nobody is being built up in the body of Christ because you know something, because you have certain experience, because you can put things eloquently, In the very next book that he's going to write them, he puts the focus. This is what people are going to grow from. Not from arrogance. Not from being puffed up.

In 2 Corinthians 3.18, Paul will write to them, but we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed in the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord the Spirit.

As we put it here, beholding the Lord through his word is the means by which he transforms us so that we grow from glory to glory. That is, we are changed, transformed into the image of Christ. That comes from putting our focus on the Lord every day every week, day after day, moment by moment, focusing on the Lord through His Word.

That's how we grow, not by building personal empires, not by looking at what we know and what we accomplish. It's beholding the Lord through His Word. That's what's going to grow us individually. That's what's going to grow us as a church body, all of us together. And notice that the change, the transforming, isn't something we accomplish.

It's the Spirit's work among us to His glory, to His honor, to His worship. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage, indeed, how awesome is Your mercy. How awesome and amazing is Your grace. You indeed are worthy of all the glory, of all the honor. And so we look to You even now. We pray that you would draw our hearts and draw our minds to behold you and thereby, by your spirits working to your glory, that we be transformed, changed from glory to glory. To your praise forever. In Jesus name. Amen.